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If you have reached these pdf links other than through the designated, please be aware ... This page contains personal writings of Jijo Punnoose. Some of which are sensitive and may not be palatable to every reader. All the other articles by this author, a reader would find, technical and scientific in nature. But not so here. It is cautioned that unless the reader has had some spiritual foundation, these articles would seem absurd. Because, spirituality is of a domain beyond rational minds. -------------------------------------- About SAFETY accidents never happen …. they are caused! As the film's director, the safety precautions on my shooting sets I took very seriously, and had continued that same onus later to my amusement park days. It could have been out of my fear of the consequences, that I have spent hours and hours studying the Application of Murphy's Law in design & execution of machines, and its practical application in performances and the staging of events. My realization that safety is the responsibility of the person at the helm happened in 1982 - the year 'the Twilight zone accident' happened on an L.A. filmset - killing the main actor and two performing children. Also, there was a lesson in one of my own stars 'Jayan' dying on a shooting accident in Nov. 1980. [My friends are sometimes surprised when I remember events from the past. I myself am surprised at the vividness of some of my earliest memories] ▶ Palaattukoman, Elephant 1961 I would have been 4 years old in 1961 when my uncle Kunchacko and my papa Appachan were shooting film Palaattukoman in the forests of Sholayar. Camped in the remote hydroelectric project site of 'Peringal' dam with papa, ammachi, my younger brother jos and newborn sister jissmol, I recall fragmented visuals of a tumult happening then. …. Elephant running off with my infant sister Jissmol hung inside a straw-spun baby cot. People running behind the elephant screaming to save the baby. The bawling, terrified face of my infant sister looking up at the elephant's open mouth… and my own mother's terror stricken face! These visuals made some sense later in my boyhood when my mother many times narrated the whole scene …. a scene that was being shot …. a shot that went wrong. The story plot of film 'Palaattukoman' was that of a royal mother banished from her kingdom, bringing up her newborn in the forests. The scene being shot was one of her hazards in the forest. A wild elephant enters the jungle settlement and carries off her newborn left unattended sleeping in a baby cot tied under a tree. My sister was newborn and my papa resorted to stage it with her - though in the film it was supposed to be a boychild which grows up to become the hero 'Palaattukoman'. The screen mother - I remember a Telugu actress, rocks the infant to sleep and leaves to gather wood for fuel. Well, …. the shooting progressed to the point that the trained elephant was made to act out the script in full. But, as in the script when the crowd with outcries started chasing it, the pachyderm panicked! Hence the unintended results. The mahout's courage in jumping in front to calm the elephant saved the situation from becoming disastrous. In her narrations of this incident to me, my mother's last line would be that of my papa being tongue-lashed by his furious elder brother ….. "What purpose did that risk serve ? …. .. a dummy of the child within the cot would have sufficed!!" My mother would stop there …. because, to talk ill about elders was a taboo then. And to me, just as for everybody in childhood, my papa was my hero. She wouldn't want to spoil that. But those last lines would remain ringing in my ears. Satyan as Palaattukoman >> -CUT- to my memories at my age of 11. ▶ Suzy, Ropebridge 1968 Malayalam film Suzy 1968. Studying in the sixth standard, during the summer holidays of 1969, I remember going to Malampuzha Gardens. My brother & sisters and a lot of our cousins of my age, all of us were accompanying when my papa took us along to picturise a song for the said film. It was a school excursion song and even I was given a line to sing in it. ജിഗ് ജിഗ് ജിഗ് ജിഗ് തീവി, ഒ+,ൻ തീവി .... !"#$ !"#$ !"#$ !"#$ %&'(", )*+,- %&'(" .... This I did standing on top of the playground's narrow gauge train's engine. Devarajan Master's song tune was that of "jingle bells, jingle bells ….". Incidentally, Mr. Kottarakara - who was the evil magician in Kuttichathan, played the school teacher who takes the excursion group with him. I was with papa when he went around Palghat town organizing children (during school vacation time!) for the shooting … their food, transport, chaperons …etc. I stood by when choreographer Murthy explained to papa the shot divisions. I also stood watching when for one of the shots the children & Kottarakkara were being led onto the suspended steel-cable- rope footbridge hung over the dam's spillway. A warning sign to the bridge very clearly said 50 persons maximum. My unease started when the number of children climbing on to that rope bridge went beyond 60. But none of the adults seemed perturbed. There were a lot of elders around … dam officials, engineers, parents, … but nobody hesitated as papa was in full command and instructing away with confidence. The rope bridge had considerably sagged, I noticed. I once again looked at the warning board and discreetly notified papa of the figure "50 persons". Pappa reacted to it in the same way my own thoughts were assuaging me … "That number is for full-grown adults". Even at that young age I knew there would have been some sort of a margin in the mind of the authorities who posted the sign ….. but I also knew that a rule is a rule! What made me uncomfortable was a fact that the gap - the first step one took from land onto the swaying bridge (between the sagging bridge's suspended base and the solid masonry steps on the landing ground), had widened. The bridge was now becoming completely full … as children kept getting on and lined up at the farther end from the camera and us. The base structure of the bridge was made of steel frame. Wooden slats were laid in close intervals for people to walk. I could hear the wire ropes creaking when children - as they normally do, cautiously stepped each foot from one slat to the next. (The bridge anyway did creak even in the wind …. just that, to an anxious me it sounded much louder then). The gap at the landing had now become wide enough that my leg could fall through. * Thankfully, with the bridge almost full (or did we run out of children to fill? I don't recollect), a take was called. There was no rehearsals, because it was not meant as a choreographed movement. It was an establishment shot during a music interlude …. the children were to be shown walking on the bridge. The song playback started from a 35mm film strip running on an optical audio machine (with glass-marking-pencils the song lines and shot numbers were *some images & sounds do remain frozen in the mind. this was one such. marked on the celluloid film). The music came blaring through a 'horn speaker' held high. The shot was taken, but the kids had hardly advanced on the bridge for those 8 bars of music. Because, they were cautiously stepping over the slats - one by one. Yet, choreographer Murthymaster said a reluctant "O.K." for that first take. But my papa after some "Hmmm ..hmm … hm" which meant - 'maybe it could be done better', said aloud "Why don't you all swing to the music rhythm and leap forward on each step you take …. that would look energetic …. shall we try again?" My heart jumped at that. Before myself, a 11 year old brought up on a discipline by which I couldn't contest an adult's decision in public, could react …. I heard a voice. "Venda, Venda … (NO. NO) …." It was a man standing nearby, and he had said it with a certain amount of emphasis. That gave me the courage to immediately say. "Mathi papa, ippozey vallaandu valanju" (enough papa, already it has sagged quite bad). Papa looked back and forth between me and that man …. gave an unsure smile absent in his repertoire, …. and said "Mathiyo? Shari, O.K. then …. Master, next shot". That man, I don't know who it was. I don't think he was a Dam/ P.W.D. official … it could have been one of the parents of the children. …………………………………………….. (Such a shame, I could find no local journal report on this Munnar Bridge Tragedy on internet archives. Only New York Times!) 125 Children Missing As Indian Bridge Falls Reuters Published: November 8, 1984 NEW DELHI, Nov. 7— About 125 schoolchildren were missing today after a rope bridge collapsed over a swollen stream in a mountain region of the southern state of Kerala, the Press Trust of India reported. The news agency said the bodies of at least nine girls and three boys had been recovered. Fifteen others had been injured, several of them seriously. It quoted the police as saying a middle-aged man who saw the bridge collapse died of a heart attack. Not even a single household of this small hill-town went untouched by a death in the family. The police said the exact number of missing was not known but about 150 children during school break time had rushed onto the bridge, over a stream in the town of Munnar, to watch a helicopter hover overhead.